If digital initiatives are not met, healthcare and life sciences (HLS) organizations lose money. The scenario worsens because of the disruption that changed how healthcare companies rely on IT teams as new technologies, such as telehealth and connected devices, became essential. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Many healthcare and life sciences companies are struggling to keep pace and meet rising patient expectations.
Four Reasons Keeping Pace with Digital Transformation in Healthcare Is Difficult
Here are four reasons healthcare companies find it difficult to embrace digital transformation:
1. Siloed data and lack of integration
Only a small percentage of data and applications used by healthcare and life sciences companies are integrated. Whether a healthcare organization is implementing data connections, creating a 360-degree patient view, optimizing contact centers, or streamlining clinical trials, a modern data integration solution is critical to delivering modern-day initiatives. Digital innovation requires healthcare companies to quickly and securely unlock, integrate, and use data.
2. Obsolete infrastructure
Organizing data proves difficult without a modernized infrastructure. Many IT leaders witnessed outdated infrastructure as a fundamental challenge to digital transformation. To create a seamless, connected patient experience, healthcare companies are reliving the importance of critical data and its impact on driving insights and making business decisions.
In order to access this data, different data sources, as well as applications, must exchange data and information quickly, effectively, and securely. However, it isn’t easy for many healthcare organizations. Especially for those that rely on outdated legacy infrastructure that leads to siloed and disparate technologies. To deliver value in today’s digital world, healthcare IT infrastructure must have flexibility and scalability to address IT deficiencies now – or fall behind.
3. IT bottlenecks
It’s no surprise that the demands and expectations of IT teams are growing faster than ever. IT teams need to involve themselves more in innovation-driven tasks to take healthcare to a new level. However, many data integration systems do not enable IT to do that because most of their time is spent creating custom codes and building extensive data mappings. IT teams find it difficult to deliver projects on time across the industry. It’s already challenging to meet the growing digital needs, and IT teams are expected to speed up while already at capacity.
By reimagining the existing data integration systems through self-service, healthcare can resolve this problem. Self-service data integration solutions empower non-technical business users to implement data connections while freeing IT to focus on more high-value tasks. IT teams no longer need to build custom codes and data mappings, which is key to relieving these bottlenecks.
4. Security and governance-related concerns
Security is always at the forefront of healthcare. Leveraging modern data integration solutions can ensure security in healthcare to a great extent. Its end-to-end encrypted environment and AI-enabled approach enable only authenticated users to access healthcare data and use it to deliver the value promised to patients.
Digital transformation has become critical for satisfying patients, getting products to market faster, and facilitating better outcomes. Although data silos, legacy infrastructure, IT limitations, and security concerns are a persistent challenge. Organizations must leverage the proven benefits of modern data integration with self-service and automation capabilities to digitally transform.